Never Saw That Before

In the top of the third inning of today's Red Sox-Yankees game, on the 25th anniversary of Dave Righetti's no-hitter, btw, I witnessed something new in a baseball game, something I'd never seen before in 44+ years of watching and playing baseball.

With 2 runners on base, Kevin Youkilis hit a ball to deep left off Yankee pitcher Rasner that Johnny Damon got his glove on temporarily. Unfortunately for Johnny and Yankee fans, the ball popped out, spun several rotations and sat for a couple of seconds on the top of the left field wall, as if it was deciding whether or not to fall backwards and grant Youkilis a three-run home run, or fall forwards and continue the mayhem. Damon's flailing legs appear to rock the fence just enough to make the ball drop softly back into play. Youkilis must not have been running hard all the way: any runner with a lick of speed would have turned this scenario into an inside-the-park homer, I think.

Update: spoke today (Saturday) to my brother-in-law Richard, an ardent Sox fan, and he claims upon replay that Youkilis was running hard the whole way. He's just slower than a tranqed-up tortoise.